Taunting
by Fading wind
Summary: The final battle between Harry and Draco. Who will win? [onesided HD]


Title: Taunting  
Genre: Romance/Tragedy  
Pairing: One-sided Harry x Draco  
Summary: The final battle between Harry and Draco. Who will win?  
Warnings: Slash. Don't like, don't read. Language.  
Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, not me.

**Taunting**

Everything around him was a blaze of fury, a furnace of hatred. Was it just his imagination or had the silver, moonlit night just coloured green? It was a menacing colour, dark and mysterious. It was a colour of evil. His mind ignored the fact that his own eyes were green, and that he had once thought green was a beautiful colour.

He could vaguely hear his best friends' shouts behind him, trying to encourage, to guide him to victory. They were voices that would usually have refreshed him and boosted him with confidence, but he felt cold and isolated. It was his battle, and only his. No one else could help him. He had to fight it himself, and he would be responsible for the outcome, whatever it might be.

His breaths were ragged and uneven. Each sound his feet made when they hit the stony ground was loud and clear, dissolving into the quiet night slowly. He could hear his opponent's steps too. They circled without a word, focused, wands pointing straight at each other, waiting for the right moment to attack.

"Get him, now, Harry!" This was one of the first calls he could make out from the many desperate cries from Ron and Hermione.

Harry Potter locked gazes with his enemy. The grey eyes burned with anger, with a desire to kill. He almost flinched under the intense glare, but he set his determination. He raised his wand arm a little higher, and his mouth opened, ready to yell out the spell.

"Don't, Potter."

The unexpected words of Draco Malfoy surprised him. His arm, which had been poised to cast a spell just a second earlier, dropped.

"Don't let your guard down, Harry!" Ron roared. "Just finish him off!"

Harry just looked at Malfoy blankly. "Do you remember our first year, Harry Potter? Do you remember the pathetic little kid you were? Well, you still are, I guess." The speaker sneered. "Do you remember why we hate each other so much?"

"I hated you right from the start, right when I saw you in Madam Malkin's," Harry replied without thinking. His brain wouldn't allow him to think properly, not when the atmosphere was so tense.

Malfoy laughed dryly. "You did not hate me back then. You only _disliked _me. Do you have such a bad memory that you cannot remember the most tragic event out of the great tragedy that is your life?"

"What are you talking about, Malfoy? If you're going to play around, then I'll kill you right now," Harry threatened.

"Do you have enough courage to?" Malfoy drawled, tauntingly.

Harry's eyes darkened, and he avoided the question. "Are you going to fight me or not? I do not wish to carry on with this pointless conversation."

"I am. In a moment, I am. I'm going to kill you, Potter," seethed the blond. "But right now, we shall _talk_. Talk about what we never got round to discussing. Serious talk."

"I don't know what you mean," Harry said, his voice softening.

"Don't listen to him, for God's sake, Harry!" It was Ron again. His voice, though loud, was distant in the background. "You know he's just trying to take away your defences and kill you when you're not looking!"

Both Harry and Malfoy took no notice. "You very well know what I'm talking about," Malfoy barely managed to restrain himself from shouting at Harry in all his rage. "Face it, Potter. You can't run away from reality."

In Harry's mind, fragments of the year of his late childhood returned. Memories he had had to cry every night to wash away resurfaced. The crush of an eleven-year-old, who was young and blind to the world. The images of a younger Draco Malfoy, with shorter blond hair and a more childlike shape. The picture of his faint half-smile, directed at _him_, Harry Potter. And fantasies he had spent conjuring up when he was unable to sleep. All these, he had nearly managed to forget.

Until Malfoy reminded him.

_"Um... Draco..."_

_"Oh hello, Potter." Suspicion glinted in the boy's grey eyes. "Why are you calling me Draco for once?"_

_"I don't know," the other boy admitted, his head lowered, almost as if in shame. "I'm not sure... I think..."_

_"You think what? No that your opinion matters, anyway, of course." The boy chuckled, but his laughter soon died when he heard what the dark-haired boy was saying._

_"I think I'm in love with you."_

The mask of the famous boy who lived vanished.

A tear slid down his face. He swallowed hard.

After that had came rejection. He remembered clearly every word Draco Malfoy had used to insult him.

_There was silence for a moment or two. Deadly silence, as the boy with jet black hair waited. He felt like he was waiting for his death sentence._

_And what came was probably just as bad._

_"You... You fucking homosexual who fucking lived! You're fucking worse than I'd thought. A fucking Potter in love with a Malfoy? Bloody hell. You sonuvabitch, get the fuck away from me! I'll tell my father about this, and he'd bloody murder you!"_

_And then the blond turned and ran away. His face was not only full of hatred, but he looked terrified as well._

_The boy who was left behind stared emptily into space. His brilliant green eyes lost their colour._

Another tear came splashing down with force. Following it were many others, glittering in the haze of moonlight. But they were quiet tears, and Harry himself made not a single sound.

"Harry! What the heck are you doing?"

"Harry Potter! Stop crying. Just kill Malfoy and put an end to it all!"

_I can't_, Harry thought. _I can't do it. Why is it so difficult to kill him when I hate him so much?_

He looked up, just briefly, and the green eyes met the greys for one last time. In them, Malfoy saw the boy who had loved him, the boy who had looked into his eyes with such fierce hope as he confessed. He hesitated, but just for a second.

"HARRY!" Both of his best friends screamed at the top of their voices, but it was hopeless.

"_Avada Kedavra._"

**The End**

**A/N: **... I have nothing to say. Reviews are appreciated, anyway.


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